Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Today, on the MCS blog, I share with you how i made the background and the handmade swirly bling...

First, let's talk background!

The July Main kit comes with this fabulous Prima Chevron Grunge Art Stencil.

Using an art spatula, i put a generous coat of molding paste onto the stencil on different corners of my background paper. After drying it with a heatgun, i then added some glimmer mist.

Next, i decided to try a technique i had seen a few times on other crafty blogs. I took a piece of plastic bubblewrap and covered it with white acrylic paint as if it was a big stamp.

I have to admit that it didn't turn out exactly as i expected, but that is my fault. First, my bubbles were pretty much all popped (yes! I have a bubblewrap fanatic!) so they didn't absorb the paint as evenly as i would have wanted. Second, i think that instead of pressing the bubblewrap onto the paint, i should have brushed the paint on the bubblewrap. As they say, practice makes perfect! I will definitely be playing around with it again soon! Here is the result of my first attempt:

I then layered my patterned papers and using 3D foam tape, i stuck the title that i had cut out of my pattern paper.

I added the rest of my title with Thickers.

Next, i whitewashed everything with a light coat of white gesso here and there.

Finally i was ready to add the rest of my elements like the picture and flowers which brings me to my 2nd tutorial for the day... handmade swirly bling!

I used leftover plastic sheets from bling i had used before on other projects.

(Sorry about the glare in my pictures... my camera and shiny plastic do not go well together! You can make out the swirly patterns.)

With my very handy styrofoam block underneath, i then placed a sheet of plastic over my layout and proceeded to piece a hole following the bling pattern, using the bling imprints on the plastic as a guide.

I didn't pierce all the way through, just enough to make a mark on my paper.

Here are the outlines of some of the pierced swirls. I kinda love the way the pierced designs looked (as seen below) so i almost decided to leave them be and forget about the bling.

But i stuck to the initial plan and took out my Liquid Pearls. I will definitely be trying out the paper piercing technique on another project though!

Following the pattern, i covered each hole with a drop of liquid pearl.

I wanted the drops to be more round and delicate like pearls, but my hand was cramping from all the piercing so the end result is a bit more shabby, but again... practice makes perfect! :)

Let me know if you decide to try these techniques on your projects and if you do, please link up so i can see! :)

Monday, July 15, 2013

This is my second post today. To see my Cardabilities DT Reveal, click HERE!

I'm happy as a bird today because this is my first DT reveal for

The word this month is CELEBRATE !

And look at the fabulous sketch provided by BITW's very own sketch designer, Heather Waldron:

I know that Summer is still here and as much as i don't want to see it go anywhere anytime soon, i was inspired to scrapbook a Fall layout for this first reveal.

This picture was given to me to scrapbook by a friend of mine who's a fellow scrapbooker and whom i met a few years ago at my LSS. It is of her beautiful daughter during a Fall outing a couple years back.

Now time for some close-ups!

Fall is indeed one of my favorite seasons to scrapbook and definitely a time to celebrate all the gorgeous wonders of Nature!

I can't wait to see what you will create inspired by the word "Celebrate". Link up your layout on the Bird Is The Word blog by August 15th for the chance to win one of these prizes from our generous sponsors: